Hi all sorry about being stupid but have a few questions. What happens to the video when you import it from a camera? Does it go on your drive untouched readt to edit or is it imported into elements? Can you make a back-up before starting anything?

Hi all - I read most of the info in the second reply. I think my answer is that the video is stored as the original format that it comes off the camera from. I have footage from a AVCHD camera, (almost 200gb - keep buying cards!) and that will come off as that format and I also have over 50 tapes of DV video which will come off as that format. I also have almost 25 8mm tapes which if I am reading correctly I will have to convert to DV video. For now the most important thing for me is to get the video off the devices onto a hard drive (I bought a 2tb one which may not be enough!) and backed up probaly to another hard drive for now. I am on a mac so I will have to figure out how to use a blu-ray drive - seems like a good way for the alternate back-up

Matt with Grass Valley Canopus in their tech support department stated that the model 110 will suffice for most hobbyist. If a person has a lot of tapes that were played often the tape stretches and the magnetic coding diminishes. If your goal is to encode tapes in good shape buy the 110, if you will be encoding old tapes of poor quality buy the model 300

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Both the 110 and 300 are two way devices so you may output back to tape... if you don't need that, look at the model 55